


Sounds of Summer

by momothesweet



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cicadas, Gen, Summer, manager appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 19:23:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13464909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momothesweet/pseuds/momothesweet
Summary: Mai goes indoor cicada catching.





	Sounds of Summer

**Author's Note:**

> This is the piece I did for the [HQ Manager Zine!](http://hqmanagerzine.tumblr.com/) A very special thanks to the mods and shoutouts to all of the wonderful participants who made a beautiful zine.

Mai takes a deep breath and clutches the net in her hands. The sounds of buzzing are deafening, mocking her and whoever will show up to this otherwise peaceful summer home.

_ You can’t catch us. We’re going to stay here as long as the summer lasts _ .

“Not on my watch,” she whispers to herself.

She approaches the kitchen counter with quiet steps, ignoring its buzzing and its huge body and the fact that it might fly away if she tries to catch it. Cicadas are harmless, she knows, but they don’t belong inside her family’s beach house at all. Curse that opened window! She was only gone for a few hours to pick up some food and catch up with the shop owners. Did all the cicadas suddenly want in on this get-together? Mai is being nice, too. If the boys were here, there’d be a lot more mess to clean up. A lot of sticky, crunchy mess.

The buzzing gets louder, an indication that it noticed her presence. In one fluid swing, Mai slaps the net down over the cicada and it hits the counter with a  _ thwack _ . She grins and snickers, scooping up her first catch and clutching the mesh so it won’t escape.

“You’re a big one,” she tells it. “Now let’s catch your other friends.”

With some special maneuvering that involves trying not to touch the cicada where it’s caught in the mesh, she drops and seals it in a storage container meant for keeping leftovers fresh. If she had known so many were going to come and visit the house, she would have bought a bug box along with the huge watermelon and three grocery bags’ worth of meat. Luckily, the net was a childhood possession that was stored away in a closet upstairs. She never thought it’d come in handy again, especially for an important job like this.

One by one, Mai swings her net and safely captures the cicadas hanging about the walls of the living room and bedroom upstairs. Thankfully, they don’t try to fly in her face or relocate to her arm or to other parts of the house. She’s also thankful that the net can extend with a simple twist and pull, since her hops can only get her so high. The buzzing goes from an ominous symphony to a low hum; a much more subdued sound that she almost doesn’t mind at all.

Yet she  _ does  _ mind. The storage container, big enough to hold a standard bowl of ramen, is three-quarters full of cicadas, so it’s absolutely got room for the one that’s still buzzing somewhere in the house.

No longer afraid of any bug that will try and intimidate her, she turns her head and follows her ears. But no luck. She looked in every bedroom and every bathroom. The living room is completely clean and so is the kitchen. A cicada can’t just open a cabinet and hide in there, right? Part of her almost wants to check but she shakes her head. It can’t be.

The house abruptly goes silent, to which Mai looks around and wonders if it found a secret way out of the house. Ten seconds later, the buzzing is back. Gripping the net, she clenches her teeth and looks around the wall into the living room again.

And then she gets a lead; the noise is coming from here. It’s muffled, which can only mean that it might be hiding somewhere and she might have to reach in narrow spots, depending on where it is. It seems to get louder and louder when she approaches the spot on the couch where she tossed her purse. Under the couch? In the cushions?

Once again, the vibrating stops, much to her bewilderment, and when she hears it again at its loudest, she smacks the net over the purse with a loud cry, as if she’s caught an invisible cicada species that has yet to be discovered.

“GOTCHA!”

She drops the net when she realizes that it’s her phone vibrating. 

Groaning and pressing a palm to her forehead, she grabs her purse and digs out her phone, to which she’s already missed three calls and ten text messages, all from either her coach or from the volleyball team itself.

In her defense, all the buzzing sounded the same when it was all grouped together. 

The house is silent when she goes for calling back Oiwake-san first, to which she apologizes and reassures him that the house is all ready and that her parents approve of the team staying here for a few days of relaxation. She can hear the boys in the background, shouting towards the phone and asking if there’s a volleyball net at the house and if there are snacks. Oiwake-san scolds them all and lets her know that they’ll be there soon. After hanging up, she finds that all the text messages in the group chat consist of their excitement and plans to soak up as much sun as they can and to play all the beach volleyball for some extra training. Laughing to herself, she puts her phone in her pocket so she won’t have to be so alert when the team tries to contact her again.

All that bug catching has left her a little winded. She plops onto the couch with a contented sigh, enjoying the sound of absolutely nothing as she closes her eyes before the team arrives.

Fifteen minutes feel like a minute, but she’s regained a notch of energy when she hops up and heads for the sound of rowdy boys approaching the door. She opens it up to just that, already getting a slurry of “thank you”s and “this is great”s and a smile from her coach and advisor.

“Go ahead and pick your rooms upstairs,” Mai announces. “We’re going to barbecue later today, but I have lots of snacks for you guys in the kitchen!”

There are whoops and chants of food once they all scamper inside, footsteps either leading upstairs or straight into the living room where they admire all the space and the view they get from the wide open windows—a bright blue beach and warm sand call their name and Mai can’t wait to join them.

All of that will have to wait, though. While Mai talks with Oiwake-san and directs him to where he can find the master bedroom, she can hear Koganegawa talking loudly with some other teammates in the kitchen.

“Ohh, what’s this? Mai-chan, what’s up with this chocolate?”

Mai whips her head around and spots him popping open the storage container containing the cicadas. “Wait!”

It’s too late. Accompanying the sounds of cicadas flying are the screams of teenage boys ready to either fight or hide. Mai keeps her mouth covered as she watches all the bugs, big and small, escape from the plastic prison she worked so hard to put them in.

Mai’s got a net and some tall, determined boys by her side.

Summer is definitely in full swing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments, kudos, feedback and a summer home are greatly appreciated! <3
> 
> [Tumblr ](http://shoujomomo.tumblr.com) | [ Twitter](http://twitter.com/iwaizumiii)


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